Session Zero, the meet up before the game, to discuss the game. My group, together for over two decades, generally doesn’t do too much of this in person, except for character creation activities on occasion. The next DM up generally creates a Player Doc in Google, explaining the campaign setting and idea, as well as character creation guidelines, and we all fill out a table with our ideas, and ask questions as needed at the end of the doc. I’m new, though, and terribly concerned about messing up. So, I’m doing a bit more than that.
A couple weeks ago, a plot-important player was out for the game session, so, after defeating a dragon, we had a discussion about my game. The Player Doc has been out for months, and they’ve all made their characters already. So, we talked a little bit about the setting, I told them what I needed from them to start the game: Character sheet info, some first game investigation checks, the idea of how I want to run things, etc. I also, for the first time in my memory of this group, asked them to let me know of any triggers, phobias, or topics they wished me to avoid. There were a couple jokes, but no one mentioned anything specific. I think it was important to ask, though. The session then devolved into picking character art for themselves and each other. We’re on Discord, so there’s quite a thread of pictures now.
Last week, we bypassed a lengthy ‘dungeon crawl’ via diplomacy, so my game draws ever nearer. So, over the weekend, I send out my Session Zero email. It covered all the things we’d discussed, as reminders, and to let the missing players know what I needed from them. In order to encourage any hesitant discussion, I listed a trigger of my own as an example. I don’t deal with shouting well, so unless it is absolutely necessary, I do not want it in my game. Usually, I just phrase this as “you can disagree, but be polite,” but I wanted to call it out specifically to encourage anyone else with triggers to come forward, to me privately, at least.
One of the other things I asked for, because of the setting, was for those crossing national borders to let me know if they did so sneakily, or if they went across legitimately. If they went across at the checkpoint, I asked what they told the border guards. I did this for two reasons. One, all those crossing are running away from someone/something, so I wanted to give them a chance to decide if they were leaving a trail or not. Two, I wanted the pair of players traveling together to take a moment to get their story straight about their travel. Newbie DM mistake, however, I thought I had explained things well enough. I was wrong and spent the weekend exchanging messages with one of those players trying to clear things up. Hopefully it makes sense now and they will present a united answer, or as close to one as their characters can.
Scared, nervous, excited, and just a few weeks to go.